February 26, 2008 - 6:07pm
Sour rye bread (Norm's formula)
Norm (nbicomputers) has generously posted his (scaled down) formula for Sour Rye Bread. I made this bread this morning.
Sour Rye Bread (Norm's formula) Loaf
Sour Rye Bread (Norm's formula) Crumb
Here is Norm's formula with my annotations and the procedure I followed.
Formula
- Cake Yeast ...... 1/2 oz. (I used 1 1/2 tsp Instant Yeast.)
- Water ............. 8 oz
- Salt ................ 1/4 oz (About 1 1/4 tsp.)
- Sour (rye) ....... 8 oz (about 1 cup)
- First clear flour 1 lb
- Caraway seeds 1 T (not in Norm's formula)
Procedure
- Place all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attached and mix at Speed 1 until all ingredients are mixed in a ball. Scrape dough off the paddle into the bowl. Remove the paddle.
- Knead the dough with the dough hook at Speed 2 until the gluten is well-developed. About 10 minutes. Scrape dough onto lightly floured board (I use a Silpat.) and hand knead very briefly. Form into a ball.
- Lightly oil a bowl and place the dough in it. Cover. Let the dough rest 20 minutes.
- Divide the dough into two equal parts. Form into long loaves or round loaves. Place the loaves onto parchment paper, placed on an inverted jelly roll pan and sprinkled with coarse corn meal then folded in the middle to form a "wall" between the loaves, so they do not touch when risen. (Essentially, a parchment couche.) Spray the loaves lightly with spray oil and cover them with plasti-crap.
- Let the loaves rise until doubled in size (or 90% doubled). This took about 100 minutes at 69F.
- An hour before baking, place a pizza stone on the middle rack of the oven and a cast iron skillet on the bottom rack. Heat the oven to 450F.
- When loaves have doubled in size, pull the parchment out flat to separate the loaves by at least 3 inches, spray (or brush) them with water, score them with 3 slashes across the long axis of the loaves and slide them, still on the parchment, onto the pizza stone. Pour 1/2 cup boiling water into the skillet, and close the oven door.
- After 5 minutes, remove the skillet using a hot pad, keeping the oven door open as briefly as possible. Pour out the water and put the skillet where it won't burn anybody!
- If the bread seems to be getting dark too fast, turn down the oven to 440F (I did this after about 10 minutes.)
- Continue baking until the loaves are done. The crust is well browned and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. This was a total of about 25 minutes.
- Cool on a wire rack before slicing.
- While the loaves are cooling, brush them with cornstarch solution. (Whisk 4 tsp cornstarch in 1/4 cup of water. Pour this slowly into 1 cup of slowly boiling water, whisking constantly. When the solution is (precisely) somewhat thickened, take off the fire. It can be used while still hot. It can be kept for a few days refrigerated for later use.)
Review of the eating will follow, but I have to eat some first, tonight along with krupnik, a very traditional soup made with beef (tonight, with lamb shank), various beans, barley, lentils (and usually potatoes).
David